A pair of sisters has realised their dreams of selling perfectly baked goods in markets around Adelaide after years of baking at home. It’s something that’s been on the horizon for the duo since they perfected the recipe for their coveted chiffon cake, born from the influence of family and heritage.
The new business, Cookienauts, has begun to take markets and food festivals by storm with unique flavours representing a culmination of cultures. Just last week Cookienauts celebrated Lunar New Year at the Chinatown Adelaide Street Party.
Owners Jenny and Cindy couldn’t be happier to introduce their beautiful baked goods to the world. There have already been some absolute crowd favourites from the cookie offerings, with the strawberry matcha cookie taking a clear lead – and strawberry matcha is having a real moment in Adelaide. Check out our strawberry matcha guide here.
Co-owner Jenny said, “Strawberry matcha is really big at the moment and I absolutely love it! We wanted to do something a little bit different. For the Lunar New Year party we wanted to incorporate some of those ethnic flavours that would really tie in with the event.”
So far, Cookienauts have brought out strawberry matcha, hojicha, red velvet, black sesame, ube, matcha, pandan coconut and choc chip cookies. There’s been a real focus on flavours like hojicha, because it’s such a unique flavour offering and has proved to be a big talking point for customers. Hojicha is a charcoal roasted green tea and makes for a deliciously different cookie flavour.
Jenny’s favourite flavour is the red velvet, which is perfectly rich and velvety, and with the Lunar New Year touch of a gold stripe, they look absolutely beautiful. “Red and gold are very prosperous and they represent good fortune,” said Jenny.
“We wanted to bring a bit of a different taste, and a lot of people have asked what some of the flavours are and even how you pronounce them,” Jenny said. “So we’re really keen to educate people on those flavours. Some people were really keen to try new flavours and were really pleasantly surprised. It was really good to see.”
The business’ other main offering is chiffon cakes, which are an unbelievably light and fluffy cake made in a ring shape – almost like a very tall pineapple ring. Jenny and Cindy have experimented with flavours since perfecting the recipe to bring brand new offerings beyond a traditional lemon-orange flavour. The chiffon flavours tie in with the cookies with pandan, hojicha, ube, and more available.
Jenny said, “The chiffon cakes, if you’ve never had one before, they are TO. DIE. FOR. I’ve always grown up with them, coming from an Asian background. They are something we’d always find at our local Asian grocers. It was getting to a point where these cakes were super expensive, so we said why don’t we make them ourselves?”
ba”The first one didn’t turn out great, but as soon as we ordered the specific moulds for the cake and we trialled a few more recipes it was a different story. We managed to get the texture perfectly fluffy, and the flavour was bang on. We said ‘oh my god this is absolutely insane.'”
With the business still a side hustle at this point in time, the sisters have big dreams of attending a huge range of markets and events across Adelaide. Who knows? Maybe it could become a full-time gig!
Cookienauts are also working on a way to make their cookies available for purchase outside of only being available at market stalls. Watch this space!
“We’ve just turned this into a passion for eating and baking and we’re so excited to be bringing it to life,” said Jenny. “We’re looking to get around to a bunch of markets across Adelaide. We’ve always got our eye on the next market or event, and we can’t wait to start popping up at more and more festivals.”
Jenny and Cindy come from a Chinese background, and Jenny says it’s heavily influenced the business and cooking in general. “Family business is all that we’ve known, so we have great family influence. We’ve always been really connected to family.”
Cookienauts
Coming to a market near you!
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